A follow-up to the book "Unnatural Acts: Critical Thinking, Skepticism and Science Exposed!" by Robert Todd Carroll, creator of The Skeptic's Dictionary. The blog will offer irregular postings about cognitive biases, logical fallacies, and illusions.

Site Map

Sunday, December 18, 2011

Natural Thinking: A Case Study

In the concluding chapter of my book Unnatural Acts, I suggest that a good way to enhance critical thinking
would be to set a goal of studying various biases, fallacies, and
illusions that plague human thinking. I list 59 items worth
investigating. I hope this blog will help those choosing to study the
59 items, plus a few more.

After
this initial post, the blog will focus on specific cognitive biases,
illusions, or fallacies. The next post, for example, will be on ad hoc
hypotheses. But I thought I would introduce the blog with a case study
that would exemplify the dangers of following intuition and instinct
when making judgments. I view Unnatural Acts as an antidote to Malcolm Gladwell's Blink: The Power of Thinking Without Thinking. In Blink,
Gladwell argues that intuition or quick judgments can be just as
valuable as well thought out and time-consuming evaluations of data. In Unnatural Acts,
I try to make the case that while intuition works well enough in many
cases, for most important matters there is a much better chance of
making a fair and accurate judgment by doing the hard work of
collecting, analyzing, and evaluating data in an impersonal, reflective,
dispassionate way. Our natural instincts work well enough most of the
time, but occasionally we would be better off engaging in some unnatural
acts.

___

This
is a story about a mother trying to understand why her firstborn
suffered from a neurological disorder and after a short and miserable
existence died soon after his first birthday. It is the story of how a
powerful emotional experience affected her judgment to the point where
she became unable to see anything good in medicine or anything bad in
the anti-vaccination movement. I can't say I have all the details right,
but the general picture is clear enough from what information is
available about the case.

Stephanie Messenger says she wrote the children's book Melanie's Marvelous Measles
because vaccinations are ineffective, children should be taught to
embrace childhood disease, and getting a disease like measles helps
build the immune system naturally. Messenger explains her reasoning on
her website Nature Matters!, which she runs out of Queensland, Australia.

She tells us that she had her first child vaccinated twice by the time he was four months old. In the U.S., the recommended vaccine schedule
would include immunization against about a half dozen diseases during
an infant's first four months. Messenger writes of the initial
vaccination for her son:

Within
moments of my son receiving his immunisations he was screaming. This
continued for most of the day and when he wasn't screaming he was
crying. This was unusual as he was a very happy, placid baby, who was
already rolling over at 8 weeks and gooing and gahing at the first sight
of his mother. The doctor told me his reactions were 'normal' and he'd
be OK in a couple of days.

After
the first day he had almost recovered with only some irritability and
restlessness noticeable. As the weeks passed he continued to reach
milestones and all appeared OK.

It
would appear that her doctor was right. The infant stopped fussing and
"continued to reach milestones." Then he had his second round of
immunization:

At
4 months of age I dutifully took him for his next round of
vaccinations. This time he screamed louder and I could not console him
at all. I would breastfeed him, only to have him projectile vomit it
back up and still the screaming continued. He had never before vomited
at all, ever. After he had vomited 2 feeds I called the doctor and told
her what was happening and she said to stop breastfeeding and give him
juice only. He kept some of it down but still vomited often.

The
next day I called the doctor and told her I think the vaccines have
done this and she told me 'no, it's just a coincidence' but to bring
him back in, which I did. She referred me to a specialist. While waiting
for the specialist appointment in a few days, my baby boy started doing
strange things. He started arching his back and crying out in pain. He
was as stiff as a board. His eyes would roll into the back of his head.
He didn't have a temperature. He had also started shuddering but he
wasn't cold. (I later learnt from the doctor these were convulsions and
seizures). The vomiting continued and I was convinced to give up
breastfeeding by the clinic sister. He vomited up the formula also. I
was getting very scared.

Messenger
doesn't say why she thought the vaccines had made her infant sick. She
may have been influenced by the anti-vaccination movement in Australia
and elsewhere. She may have been influenced by seeing Dr. Robert S. Mendelsohn on the Phil Donahue show talking about the dangers of vaccination.
In any case, her early judgment that vaccines caused her son's
convulsions and other problems was not based on scientific evidence. All
she knew for sure at that point was that the infant showed signs of illness shortly after his vaccinations. Whatever the trigger, her initial judgment about the cause of her son's seizures wasn't based on research she had done.
The research would come later. To her credit, she was skeptical of her
doctor's assurance that the connection between the vaccinations and the
convulsions was coincidental. She was not afraid to challenge the
medical community. She would not blindly accept what the health experts
had to say about the value and safety of vaccinations. She set out to do
her own research. That's an admirable trait and is to be commended.

Unfortunately,
she did what comes naturally to most people: she set out to find
evidence in support of what she believed. She apparently ignored the
speculation of the specialists who were looking after her son that he
might have a rare condition called Alexander Disease.* The
unnatural thing to do is to try to falsify one's belief. Most of us
don't realize how easy it is to find confirming evidence for our
beliefs, but it is breathtakingly simple as long as one is selective and
doesn't actively seek contrary data. When Messenger did her research,
she sought evidence to confirm her belief that vaccines caused her son's
seizures and eventual death. She seems to have ignored he possibility
that he suffered from a genetic disorder. She had little trouble finding
the confirmation she sought. She also found reinforcement from a community of like-minded people in the anti-vaccination movement. She writes:

Vaccination
killed him, I have no doubt. If he crawled under the sink and drank the
same poisonous concoction of heavy metals, formaldehyde, foreign
proteins, multiple viruses and a host of other toxins, the emergency
room would have called it poisoning. Because it was injected into his
body, it's called 'a coincidence'!

There is ample and compelling evidence that vaccinations do work, despite what a few contrarians might argue. (See, for example, the Centers for Disease Control page on vaccines and immunizations and my anti-vaccination movement page in The
Skeptic's
Dictionary.) Messenger's determination that vaccines killed her son
apparently created such a negative halo effect around the concept of
vaccination that she not only ignored other possibilities for her son's
misfortune, she demonized the entire science-based medical community:

It saddens me to know there are thousands of babies
out there being damaged, disabled or lost every year and they have no
voice to stand up against the powerful drug companies and, what is now
an industry, and scarcely a profession – medicine.

Finding
support for her belief that vaccines kill was just the beginning of
Messenger's crusade. She now promotes the idea that getting diseases
such as measles is a good thing for the reasons noted above, none of
which have scientific evidence to support them. (Other anti-vaxxers go even further and advocate "pox parties.") Contrary to Messenger's
claims, vaccinations are effective and children may die if they get a
disease such as measles. Promoting diseases to build the immune systems
of children "naturally" is dangerous.

If
you allow your children to catch the disease, they run the risk of
being seriously ill or even dying. On the other hand, the vaccines only
rarely cause serious adverse effects. It is true that vaccines do not
give long lasting protection 100% of the time but then neither do many
diseases. For example, you can catch whooping cough, Hib, meningococcal
disease and rubella more than once. However, even if a child does catch
the disease after they have had the vaccine, the disease is usually
milder. By giving the vaccine most children are spared the effects of
the disease. Even if immunity from the vaccine wears off, if enough
people are immunized, there will be herd immunity and so this should not
be a problem. This will protect people who have lost their immunity.

So, no, the odds are that your child will not be better off if she gets measles, mumps, or rubella. She might end up deaf, paralyzed, or dead.

What kind of research did Messenger do? She tells the following story:

A
few years passed and I went on to have another child. This time I was
not going to be complacent. I had over the years researched the
vaccination issue at length. I read the product inserts and found the
reactions all printed there so my suspicions were confirmed by the drug
company (the makers of the product) even if not by the doctors.

I
had been lied to and my concerns about his immunisations were never
followed up in any way. They were met with denials and due to my blind
faith in the medical profession I didn't question.

I
have since gone on to read hundreds of books, some written by very
courageous doctors who have bothered to investigate this issue
thoroughly, read medical journals and also watched some DVD's done by
doctors all to warn parents about the dangers of vaccination.

I
have 3 healthy, totally unvaccinated children, who have never had a
childhood disease. Unlike their vaccinated friends who have often
succumbed to the diseases they have been vaccinated against. I kept
these children fit and well using what is provided by nature – natural
foods, clean water, sunshine, clean air, exercise, adequate sleep and a
loving and nurturing environment.

Understandably,
Messenger would like to believe that her son's death could have been
prevented. It is understandable that she sought someone to blame for her
misfortune. Messenger, like most of us, would like to know what causes
diseases. Like the rest of us, she would like to have control over
preventing and curing illness. But these natural desires can lead us to
the illusion of knowledge and the illusion of control.
Much of what happens to us is due to blind luck, including the getting
or not getting of diseases or illnesses. Her son's seizures and death
may have been the consequence of something Messenger ingested while
pregnant or it may have been due to a defect in the infant's genetic
makeup. Believing that vaccines caused her infant's death makes for a more satisfying story than believing
that such a tragedy could just happen because of some fluke of nature.
That is not to say that things that Messenger promotes like clean water,
clean air, exercise, and adequate sleep don't have an effect on our
health. They do, but clean living won't prevent a gene from triggering a
cascade of replication known as cancer. Eating natural foods won't
prevent the effects of a genetic defect.

Contrary to Messenger's belief, the scientific evidence strongly supports the benefits of vaccinations. And recent tragic facts go contrary to her belief that getting diseases "naturally" is a good thing.
It is good that Messenger has three healthy children, but I don't think
she gives enough credit to luck for their situation. Her negative
feelings about vaccination have blinded her not only to the benefits of
vaccination but to the benefits of scientific medicine. While her
crusade is a natural one—given the interpretation she has made of her
experiences—unnatural thinking about complex issues such as the safety
and value of vaccines or the cause of death of an infant are preferable
if fairness and accuracy are your goals.

7 comments:

Great first post! The growing anti-vax trend is alarming, and as they are beginning to see in California, the ramifications of it are quite serious. I appreciate anyone who helps fight ignorance on this issue, so thanks! I look forward to your future posts.

I think this kind of thinking is dangerous. This article, and the Skeptic's Dictionary are simply conditioning people to stop thinking for themselves by making arguments claiming people are using "Pseudo Science" as basis for decision making, and going along with mass poisoning of the population. I see contradictions such as; in this article the writer quotes the CDC saying "vaccinations rarely cause serious side effects" meaning they DO sometimes cause serious side effects. So, why do you deny it and confirm it in the same article? There is plenty of hard science to confirm a rise in autism or autism like symptoms caused from vaccinations, mercury is poisonous to the human body, fluoride in the water is ineffective and it is an industrial pollutant, pharmaceutical companies are getting more and more people addicted to hard drugs, etc.Wake up people!